NTKOG #153: The kind of sea-salted gourmand who thinks nothing of cracking open a whole little dude’s skeleton, sucking out its weird rust-colored liver, and begging for seconds.
I am not: wholly convinced it’s a coincidence that “crustacean” contains the word “crust”.
The Scene: A fair seaside town not far out of Barcelona, where gleaming yachts sail thoughtlessly over the pop-eyed little sea aliens that everyone aboard seems to think it’s normal to eat.
“But TKOG,” you’re saying, “we know, we know, you’re so afraid of marine life that you root for tuna trawlers to decapitate dolphins. But surely you’re not going to write another friggin’ post wherein you cast yourself as the rugged, he-man lovechild of Tony Bourdain and Ernest Hemingway just because you ate something with a non-mammalian respiratory system?”
HECK YES I AM, GUYS. And this one has pictures!
Behold, paella, the national dish of Spain. Double behold the five-foot-long spraypainted cockroaches that festoon the platter. People seriously eat this stuff on purpose!
“Uhhhh, guys? Can we have the waiter on deck to grill up una friggin’ hamburguesa?” But after several months of living in Spain, Kiss-Ducker has perfected the oh my god, you guys are embarrassing me in THE OLD COUNTRY ex-pat grimace, so I sucked it up and snarfed down a little fishflesh.
And it was actually going pretty well — until I speared up an ultra-suction-cuppy length of octopus, catapulted it onto our refuse plate, then got a faceful of:
GUYS. There are sewage-treatment plants with more appetizing waste receptacles.
Anyway, after much brave soldiering — and picking around green mystery organs — I was the proud owner of a plate that had been two-thirds demolished. The restaurant proprietor stopped by to clear off our plates (Justice’s and Kiss-Ducker’s squeegeed clean), and I beamed up at him like a tabbycat hovering over a freshly maimed chipmunk. See, sir! I did this! Me! For you!
The restauranteur took one brusque glance at my plate, then turned to Kiss-Ducker, wounded: “She didn’t like it?”
The Verdict: I tried! I tried so hard! And after many forays now into the formerly virgin world of eating below-sea-level fare, I declare myself officially pardoned from all future seafood guilt. I came, I chewed (and chewed and chewed), and it’s just not for me. I don’t care of the queen of friggin’ Tuvalu wants to serve me salmon at her royal wedding — if it drowns in air, then for it I don’t care.
Quick. Someone stitch that on a throw pillow.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
There are so many phrases here that I like I won’t even begin.
What? O.K. here goes…
Tony not Anthony best buds
Non Mammalian respiratory system
Tabby cat….Me For you
If it drowns in air….
I am with you on seafood. I’m looking at recipes for Dim sum to bring to a party tonight and the ingredient shrimp no longer resonates in my brain. The eyes read shrimp, the mind registers chicken.
My Mom’s favorite treat when she comes up to visit is to go to a swanky eatery, sit at the bar, and have a beer and raw oysters.
I love everything about that sentence except the last word.
OK, and for your next adventure, eat sushi wrapped in seaweed after you read this (caveat: it involves colonization of your intestinal intestinal microbiome by bacteria on the seaweed).
The wounded, “She didn’t like it?” reaction is exactly why I learned to LIE to kind-hearted Spaniards (including my fiancé’s grandmother!) and say that I’m allergic to all fish and seafood… they just can’t fathom the concept of not liking (or, you know, being repulsed by the mere scent of) things that come out of the sea. So when I go to the paella restaurants, before we even sit down, I always make sure they’ll let me order a meat one for just one person (because no one else is ever interested in giving up the seafood and sharing a meat paella with me). And grandma makes me my own meat & veggies paella while everyone else eats the normal one, because she loves me. (And because she’s a Spanish grandmother, I always have enough for leftovers for like a week after. yum!)
Dear, a very eloquent and entertaining post to say, “I don’t like fish.”
I’m proud that you went out of your comfort zone, however, why not try some nice shrimp in garlic butter: they taste just like frog legs.
ugh. i hate seafood too. disgusting.
I like seafood, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to dislike crustaceans. Mostly for the reasons you’ve spelled out here. They’re bottom dwellers, with weird gunky organs, basically cockroaches of the sea. I don’t blame you for not wanting to eat them and I commend for the effort.
I do partake of the creatures of the sea, however, I have always found the compulsion of others to insist that adults eat a food they do not wish to try very curious. Kudos to you.
I’m okay with seafood. I like shrimp. Sometimes fish.
But this squicked me out. Ew, ew, ew.
I just read the (hilarious) tags for this and I’m pleased to see that you learned to love at least one sea-dwelling dude. If there was one thing Barcelona taught me it’s this: The only thing more delicious than a regular squid is a baby squid.
Speaking of babies, yeah, Bourdain would have to be the birther. Hem would not be into carrying that, uh, white elephant.
p.s. This was the second blog I read about paella today. I think the universe is trying to tell me something.